With the plain hoop of gold.”
It is the remaining half of the play which makes the whole so inferior to the first play. Not that, as we have said, there is any deficiency of dramatic power. Philip and the cardinal are masterfully handled. Full justice, too, is done—from the author’s stand-point—to the characters of Gardiner, Cranmer, and the rest. But a thick gloom overhangs the entire picture; and the glaring historical untruth of much of it is no relief to Catholic eyes.
Philip and Pole clash instantly. The Spaniard has a presentiment of this at the moment when Sir John Gage announces
“The cardinal legate’s boat hath touched the beach.
Queen. The cardinal arrived! My dear, dear cousin!
Go, my lord chamberlain—go, Sir John Gage,
And bear our greetings to his Eminence.
Let his legantine cross be borne before him;
And all appliances of holy state
Attend his blessed footsteps. This our king,